Staging Your Home to Sell

As you all know, the property market is experiencing a marked slow down on previous activity, and many people are finding it difficult to sell their property’s at the expected price. If you don’t want to experience significant price cuts on your asking price, or wait indefinitely to get your house sold, you may need professional help from a Home Stager.

Home Staging is a marketing tool used to increase the value of your home to help it to sell quickly. It was developed in the USA 35 years ago, and has become a thriving industry there and in other parts of the world. It’s finally starting to take off in South Africa, as home owners and property developers are seeking professional help from Home Stagers. It is difficult to show a vacant home, or a home that is dark and filled with accumulated possessions. Potential buyers can often not imagine themselves living in a house under these circumstances.

Home Staging is not Interior Design or Decorating. Interior Design personalises living spaces to bring out the personality of the homeowner and usually consists of an entire makeover. Home Staging, on the other hand, depersonalises a home in order for it to appeal to the broadest spectrum of buyers. Home Staging professionals will edits existing furniture or add rented furniture, and work on a tighter budget than an Interior Designer.

Home Staging will potentially cost you much less than a reduction on your asking price in the event that you’re struggling to sell. In the current market, some people are experiencing a reduction of as much as 20% on their asking price, and Home Staging would have only cost only a fraction of that. It will increase the value of your house and put you in a better negotiating position when your house enters the market. On average, professional Home Staging increases the value of a property by 10%, and also helps the property to sell 50% faster.

Home Staging usually consists of five basic steps:

1. De-cluttering - Clutter is one of the biggest culprits for a house not selling. We all tend to accumulate possessions and end up with storage problems, bumping into furniture and falling over the kids’ toys! Bright colours and too many patterns can also detract from the space.
2. Depersonalising - The average buyer does not necessarily appreciate your frog, fairy, clock, book or personal photo collection, so these things need to be packed away. You will be moving anyway!
3. Cleaning - Your house needs deep cleaning to make it fresh and sparkling, and appeal to all the senses of your potential buyer. Steam cleaning is a must for getting rid of ingrained dirt and odours.
4. Repairs - All those little things that you have not got around to fixing now need to be seen to. Broken things in a house are a sign to your potential buyer that the house is not cared for. Worn out or outdated surfaces and accessories should be replaced.
5. Styling and Decorating - This stage needs the expert designer eye. Home Staging Consultants use design elements and principles to enhance the space, the flow, the architecture and focal points of a home. They minimise faults, maximise desirable elements and use techniques to make a house warm and inviting to cater for an aspiring lifestyle. An inventory of furnishings and accessories is made and maintained, and Home Stagers often have access to special resources such as art galleries or antique rentals.

Kitchens and bathrooms are critical when selling. As a seller, you may not be able to afford a complete makeover, and it’s probably not advisable to over capitalise on your property. Simple things like applying a fresh coat of paint on outdated panelling or cabinets, replacing worn out counter tops and flooring and providing adequate storage can make a significant difference.

In this example we edited furniture and accessories to create flow and a focal point, i.e. the piano.

So why should you stage?

• Staged homes get higher offers
• Staged homes sell faster
• It is a cost effective investment
• Most buyers want a house in move-in condition and are aspiring to a lifestyle.

Sellers need to understand:

• the advantages of ‘packaging’ their home for merchandising.
• that they must become emotionally detached – they need to remove the home from the house.
• the first two weeks are critical when putting their house up for sale, so we recommend that they have their homes Staged before putting them on the market.

Click here to find out more about Home Staging with Eril Wiehahn from Design Tank.